Seldovia

Seldovia is only accessible by boat or plane. We board the Rainbow Connection for the 90 minute cruise, along the way we pass a bird rookery spotting nesting gulls, cormorants and puffins. Then pass through an area where sea otters are gathered. These floating Otter groups are called rafts. The sea otters have extremely thick fur, approximately 1 million hairs per square inch, which keeps them warm and waterproof as they have very minimal fat. They are very cute and several have babies resting on their stomachs as they float around. Extremely hard to get photos of as they dip underwater if we get too close. We arrive in Seldovia just on lunch time so first up find a cafe for some lunch (P- wasn’t hard to find a cafe – there was only 2 and one was closed!) after which we head off walking around the small town to visit the tourist hotspots. First stop is the St Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church built in 1891 under the leadership of Russian Orthodox Travelling Priests. The bell tower was added in 1906. The church is still used today for weddings and special events.

Only a small part of the historic boardwalk is left but it is certainly a pretty spot, even at low tide. Originally most of Seldovia was built up on stilts like these homes but when the 1964 earthquake occurred it dropped this area of the coast 10 feet and destroyed most of the original buildings. Before reboarding we find an ice cream shop and as Philip has been deprived of ice cream we decide to have one each. Limited choice of flavours but they we very nice.

(P- Deprived! I hadn’t had an ice cream in 6 or 8 weeks. When Ice-cream o’clock used to come every day. I wasn’t sure if I had relapsed to my old ways or would have enough inner strength to continue my (more ) healthy eating habits of late! Judith’s “ very nice ice cream ” was an understatement it was bloody delicious!)

(P- I wonder where CAPTAIN COOK didn’t sail to and explore? Evidently he was splashing around up here too at one stage. Cook Inlet and a few other names alerted me to research a little and yes he was here! He has also been a lot of other destinations we have visited over the years. Well done Captain Cook!)

On the return journey from Seldovia we were on the lookout for Orca. Some had been sighted back toward Homer so we were keeping our fingers crossed. Luckily we spotted some and spent the next half hour following them, watching as they surfaced and dove again. The male orca have huge dorsal fins reaching up to 6 feet. The first you see is this fin slicing through the water before they spout water then their arching back gliding smoothly back to disappear underwater again. An awesome way to finish the cruise.

Back in our RV and we are heading out of town and back toward Soldotna. We drove for a couple of hours before finding a spot to Boondock (freecamp) at Tern Lake. Had a spectacular view out our door over the lake towards the mountains.